Here is a great article on Buckeroo in a past issue of the Miniature Horse World.
http://www.amha.org/docs/default-source/default-document-library/boonesbuckeroo_junejuly2010.pdf
If Dreams Were For Sale, What Would You Buy?
By Robin Mingione
It has taken me thirty-two years to understand what the Miniature Horse has done for me and my family. Looking back to the earliest of my memories they have always been a part of my life. The Miniature horse has taught me something I do not think I could have gained in any other industry in the world....loyalty. I have met many professionals in a variety of fields that become addicts in their own offices inside some huge concrete building in the middle of a chaotic city. Many of these people claim they are loyal to their jobs and their employers and their careers, but it is a different kind of loyalty from what I know. There is a difference between loyalty and dedication to a job and the loyalty and pas- sion that drives you to get up in the morning to go to the barn. It is a commitment that only a true horse person can relate to and understand.
I was raised by two loving parents, Marianne and Ed, with three other siblings. John, Heather and Brian and I grew up in the middle of small town USA. The oppor- tunities for kids were only what one made for themselves in school and in sports. However my mother foresaw an opportunity that she knew would encourage us to learn about life, death and everything in between from love and responsibility to timeliness and eventually the aspects of doing business. My mother grew up living at a hatchery and feed mill and had grandparents with a herd of Shetland ponies. She didn’t play with dolls or other “girly” things. It was plastic horses and miniature farms that occupied her time and creativity. Her best days were when she could go to her grandparents and bring the mares into the barn and pick her favorite
mare “Lady May” to ride around. Although it wasn’t often that she visited her grandparents, they planted a seed in her that would grow and consume all of her childhood thoughts. She dreamt of owning her own horse farm. As soon as the opportunity came for her to have a farm of her own to raise her children, Marianne and Ed made plans for the future business; the plans she began making in her room with her toy horses years before. It wasn’t until 1979 that Marianne with Ed and three children moved from the city and established Little King Farm in Madison, Indiana.
Shortly after the move the couple remodeled the old cattle barn into a horse barn; new fences were put in, and Brian, the fourth child, came into the picture in 1981. About that same time the number of animals on the farm rapidly began to increase. It started with two ponies, a Morgan, a Walking Horse, goats, sheep, chick- ens and one Miniature named Peanut. Back then, there were only 13 registered Miniature horse breeders in the United States. Marianne came across some information on the Komoko Ranch in Florida. She inquired and talked Ed into going to the first Komoko Production Sale. They purchased several mares and stallions from Bob Bridges and brought them home to start a breeding program. They had already purchased some horses from Bob and Dorothy Stout in Rushville, Indiana. Marianne thought she had a plan for her program until one day she met a very special man and an unmistak- able horse.
It was at one of the first IMHR National Shows in Murray, Kentucky when an older man with a great big cheery smile walked in the ring with a stunning two yr old buckskin stal- lion beaming with presence unlike any other horse she had ever seen. This man was Lowell Boone and the horse was Boones Little Buckeroo. It was as if the stars and the moon were all aligned and it was meant to be. Little did she know at that moment, that man and that horse would forever change her life and the life of her family and take them thru a journey of life, love, excite- ment and adventure!
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